A Continuity of Law that Values the Needs of the Community
The word for “and” in Hebrew is not a separate word: it is a one-letter prefix, the letter vav . Sometimes it is translated as and, other times it is best translated as “but”; sometimes, vav is a participle that doesn’t need to be translated. In the opening sentence of Parashat Mishpatim, the translation used in the Reform Movement’s Chumash discounts the vav that is attached to first word, v'eileh, "these" or "and these."